Prisoners Release

Dominic Grieve: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice what estimate he has made of the size of the prison population in each month up to the end of 2015 following ending of the End of Custody Licence Scheme.

Jack Straw: The Ministry of Justice produces annual projections of the prison population in England and Wales, most recently in August 2009. These project the prison population under three different scenarios, based on different assumptions about future sentencing trends.
	Other impacts included in the projections, such as those of legislation and processes, are applied equally to all scenarios. These cover the anticipated impacts of policy and process initiatives that have agreed implementation timetables. These assumptions and anticipated impacts have remained unchanged since 2008 projections.
	End of Custody Licence (ECL) was introduced on 29 June 2007. Under this scheme a prisoner who was given a determinate custodial sentence between four weeks and four years can be released on licence up to 18 days before the end of their sentence.
	Because there was no agreed timetable for its conclusion, its effect was included throughout the projection period. In the second half of 2009, the caseload of prisoners on ECL has been between 1,000 and 1,200:
	http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/endofcustodylicence.htm
	The scheme ends on 12 March this year as it was recently announced. As result of this, it is expected that by the end of March 2010, the prison population will be 1,000 to 1,200 higher than was anticipated in the current published prison population projections.
	This effect will carry on from March 2010 estimates onwards. Here are last year's projections plus 1,200:
	
		
			  Number 
			   High  Medium  Low 
			  2010
			 March 86,000 85,400 84,700 
			 April 86,200 85,600 84,800 
			 May 86,200 85,500 84,600 
			 June 86,900 86,100 85,100 
			 July 87,800 86,900 85,900 
			 August 87,600 86,700 85,600 
			 September 87,900 86,900 85,600 
			 October 88,000 86,900 85,600 
			 November 88,500 87,300 86,000 
			 December 86,800 85,600 84,100 
			 
			  2011
			 January 87,700 86,400 84,800 
			 February 88,000 86,600 84,900 
			 March 89,000 87,600 85,800 
			 April 88,900 87,300 85,500 
			 May 89,200 87,500 85,600 
			 June 89,800 88,100 86,100 
			 July 90,400 88,600 86,500 
			 August 90,400 88,500 86,400 
			 September 90,500 88,600 86,400 
			 October 90,600 88,600 86,400 
			 November 90,800 88,700 86,400 
			 December 88,600 86,400 84,000 
			 
			  2012
			 January 89,700 87,500 85,000 
			 February 90,600 88,300 85,800 
			 March 90,800 88,500 85,900 
			 April 90,900 88,500 85,800 
			 May 91,200 88,700 85,900 
			 June 91,400 88,900 86,100 
			 July 91,900 89,200 86,300 
			 August 91,800 89,100 86,100 
			 September 91,900 89,100 86,000 
			 October 91,900 89,100 86,000 
			 November 92,000 89,000 85,900 
			 December 88,500 86,700 83,400 
			 
			  2013
			 January 89,500 87,700 84,300 
			 February 90,400 88,500 85,100 
			 March 90,600 88,600 85,100 
			 April 90,600 88,500 85,000 
			 May 90,900 88,700 85,100 
			 June 91,100 88,800 85,200 
			 July 91,500 89,200 85,400 
			 August 91,400 89,000 85,200 
			 September 91,500 89,000 85,100 
			 October 91,500 89,000 85,000 
			 November 91,600 89,000 85,000 
			 December 89,400 86,700 82,600 
			 
			  2014
			 January 90,500 87,700 83,500 
			 February 91,400 88,600 84,300 
			 March 91,700 88,800 84,500 
			 April 91,800 88,800 84,400 
			 May 92,000 89,000 84,500 
			 June 92,400 89,200 84,700 
			 July 92,800 89,600 85,000 
			 August 92,800 89,500 84,800 
			 September 92,900 89,600 84,800 
			 October 93,000 89,600 84,800 
			 November 93,200 89,700 84,800 
			 December 90,900 87,400 82,400 
			 
			  2015
			 January 92,000 88,400 83,400 
			 February 93,000 89,300 84,200 
			 March 93,300 89,500 84,300 
			 April 93,400 89,500 84,300 
			 May 93,600 89,700 84,400 
			 June 93,900 89,900 84,500 
			  Note:  These figures will be revised in this year (2010) publication. 
		
	
	More details on the projections may be found in the latest published bulletin, "Prison Population Projections 2009-15" Ministry of Justice Statistics Bulletin, 28 August 2009. This is available at the following web page:
	http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/prisonpopulation.htm